Science and the Modern World: Lowell Lectures, 1925 |
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Accordingly actual occasion aesthetic ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD analysis antecedent Aristotle aspects atom body character civilisation cognition complete conceived concept concrete fact definite Descartes determination doctrine duration effect eighteenth century electrons elements ence endurance energy entities environment epoch eternal objects ether event example exhibited existence experience express finite Galileo genius grade human ideas importance individual essence individualised influence involved knowledge laws lecture Leibniz limited logical logical harmony material materialistic mathematics matter mean mentality merely metaphysical Middle Ages mind mode molecule Newton nineteenth century notion order of nature organic theory particular pattern period philosophy physical possibility prehension presupposes primate principle protons Pythagoras quantum theory question rational realisation reality realm reason relatedness relations relationships religion religious requires respect scheme scientific sense sense-object seventeenth century simple location space space-time spatio-temporal successive theory of relativity things thought tion truth tury ultimate unity vibration vibratory whole
Popular passages
Page 75 - Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth ! Ye Visions of the hills ! And Souls of lonely places ! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye, through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills...
Page 64 - Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
Page 77 - THE everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters, — with a sound but half its own...
Page 88 - In order to understand our epoch, we can neglect all details of change, such as railways, telegraphs, radios, spinning machines, synthetic dyes. We must concentrate on the method in itself: That is the real novelty which has broken up the foundations of the old civilization.
Page 181 - Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things ; something which is real and yet waiting to be realized ; something which is a remote possibility and yet the greatest of present facts ; something that gives meaning to all that passes and yet eludes apprehension ; something whose possession is the final good and yet is beyond all reach ; something which is the ultimate ideal and the hopeless quest.
Page 133 - consciousness" exists seems so absurd on the face of it — for undeniably "thoughts" do exist — that I fear some readers will follow me no farther. Let me then immediately explain that I mean only to deny that the word stands for an entity, but to insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function.
Page 72 - STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute ; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Page 13 - I mean the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labours of scientists would be without hope. It is this instinctive conviction, vividly poised before the imagination, which is the motive power of research : — that there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled.
Page 5 - Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
Page 189 - When you understand all about the sun and all about the atmosphere and all about the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.